Expect the unexpected!

I have been working with linux since Highschool (which isn't as long ago for me as it is for some), and I have just found a new command-line tool!

Expect

I was attempting to automate the 'store user config' process, and the weblogic.Admin way of doing it wasn't behaving(complaining about invalid pad in the key), so I was defaulting back to the WLST command.  I ran into the same problem described here.  Since in my specific scenario, I needed some environment configuration that didn't translate properly, I needed a way to execute it directly in my bash script.

Using the following WLST script (here's the one from StackOverflow above)

#storeUserConfig.py
connect(user1,p@ss,'t3://myhost:9999')
storeUserConfig(userConfigFile='userconfig.secure',userKeyFile='userkey.secure') 
disconnect() 
exit()

I tried piping output directly into the command.... which didn't work!

yes | java -cp $PATH_TO_WEBLOGIC_JAR weblogic.WLST storeUserConfig.py"

and

java -cp $PATH_TO_WEBLOGIC_JAR weblogic.WLST storeUserConfig.py" << EOF
y
EOF

After a coworker suggested "expect", I came up with the following solution...

#createKeyAndConfig.sh

## Do some stuff to set up the env similar to weblogic's included stopWebLogic.sh
...

CMD="java -cp $PATH_TO_WEBLOGIC_JAR weblogic.WLST storeUserConfig.py"

expect -c "
  set timeout -1
  spawn \"$CMD\"
  expect \"y or n\"
  send \"y\r\"
  expect eof
"

The expect command will 'spawn' the java process.  It will wait until it sees the "y or n" portion of output from the script, when it will then 'send' a y followed by a newline to the program.

The first line, 'set timeout -1' was because creating the key file takes longer then the default timeout in expect, so it would terminate early (leaving behind a 0 length userkey.secure file)

Managing puppet modules with vagrant

A little while ago, I started my journey learning about DevOps, starting out by diving into some of the tooling (Puppet), and adding a few DevOps podcasts into my rotation.

One problem that plagued the process from the beginning... how to handle puppet modules?   Here's the evolution of my thought process...


Stage 1... ignorance

I simple used GIT to control my /etc/puppet/modules/ directory!  Lots of redundant code in here that was already saved in other git repos I could/should just fetch, which gives me an idea...

Stage 2..... frustration
Git Submodules!  I was just manually pulling down most of my modules directly from their git repos instead of though puppet forge anyway, so how about adding them as submodules to my repo, and having git fetch them for me!

Stage 3...... starting automation
Now that I was trying to build easy to run Vagrantfiles that had my puppet configs, I need some way to set it all up....  Initial trick.... adding a 'setup' script in my vagrant directory that pre-downloads all the modules that I run before the first setup! (either by directly calling git clone on the repo, or by calling git submodule init).  This was still a 'prestep' to running vagrant-up, so that didn't quite feel right

Stage 4...... feels right!
One of the first things I did after joining twitter was to ask #puppetize what the best way to manage modules was, and they did not disappoint!  I was redirected to this blog, which shows how you can use puppet librarian to manage your modules, but as to not require everyone to have ruby-gems installed on their main machine, they pull it down inside of their vagrant instance (since most vagrant images already have ruby-gems installed since ruby is a core component of puppet and chef.



Utilizing Configuration management with Vagrant is a powerful tool to help build easily repeatable environments for  both Dev and Deploy!  I hope this helps someone!  I know it was quite a struggle initially!

Weblogic Identity Asserter and Athorization Provider in one!

When trying to create a Custom Identity Asserter AND Authorization Provider MBean for weblogic, I ran into some trouble..  After following all of the examples, I was unable to get my MBean to behave as both!

While trying to find solutions, my googleFu turned up a few lead that left me feeling like it could not be done.

http://www.ateam-oracle.com/why-do-i-need-an-authenticator-when-i-have-an-identity-asserter/

https://community.oracle.com/thread/796040


 The problem I had was if my MDF file extended IdentityAsserter, it would not contain a method to 'getControlFlag' to pass to the LoginModule.

I found this great example at http://danielveselka.blogspot.com/2011/10/weblogic-custom-identity-asserter.html. The only problem?  He skirts around the same issue by manually assigning a constant value to the controlFlag that gets passed to the AppConfigurationEntry in the getConfiguration() method.  

 public void initialize(ProviderMBean mbean, SecurityServices services)
  {
    System.out.println("SimpleSampleIdentityAsserterProviderImpl.initialize");
    SimpleSampleIdentityAsserterMBean myMBean = (SimpleSampleIdentityAsserterMBean)mbean;
    description  = myMBean.getDescription() + "\n" + myMBean.getVersion();
    
    controlFlag = LoginModuleControlFlag.SUFFICIENT;
...
} 

  private AppConfigurationEntry getConfiguration(HashMap options)
  {
      System.out.println("SimpleSampleIdentityAsserterProviderImpl: getConfiguration");
    // make sure to specify the simple sample authenticator's login module
    // and to use the control flag from the simple sample authenticator's mbean.
    return new
      AppConfigurationEntry(
        "examples.security.providers.authentication.simple.SimpleSampleLoginModuleImpl",
        controlFlag,
        options
      );
  }

In that example, he has the following in the MDF.  If I had this, My MBean would not build with the getControlFlag() method.

 Extends       = "weblogic.management.security.authentication.IdentityAsserter"

If I extended the Authenticator, my assertIdentity() methods from the IdentityAsserter would never get called, but I WOULD have the getControlFlag() method

 Extends       = "weblogic.management.security.authentication.Authenticator"

Turns out this is an easy fix.  There is an attribute value for Implements in the MDF Element Syntax. Having an MBeanType similar to the following solved my problem!

<MBeanType
 Name          = "SimpleSampleIdentityAsserter"
 DisplayName   = "SimpleSampleIdentityAsserter"
 Package       = "examples.security.providers.identityassertion.simple"
 Extends       = "weblogic.management.security.authentication.IdentityAsserter"
 Implements    = "weblogic.management.security.authentication.Authenticator"
 PersistPolicy = "OnUpdate"
>

This allows it to implement all the features of both, but be a single entry that you can add to your weblogic security realm.

Kill-a-watt for 240V appliances?

I've previously used a standard kill-a-watt device to check on power usage around my house.  I wanted to be able to measure more then my standard three prong, 120V receptacles however. 

If you want to measure 240V appliances, I have stumbled across someone who built something to do just that!

If you want to measure things which are hard-wired to your panel, or your whole panel itself, You can look to openenergymonitor.org for information and their shop where you can order any of the parts you would need.  I haven't ordered anything from them yet, but they are based in the UK. 

Railstutorial, first chapter

I had some spare time today, so I finally got started with the fantastic guy to Ruby on Rails at https://www.railstutorial.org.  I've tried to get started before, but since I'm a bit of a masochist, I've decided to do everything on my raspberry pi.

My last attempt to get started, I told my raspberry pi to install ruby, and it had to build from source.  I left it churn away over night, and that was eventually completed.

Today, I told it to install the rails version specified in the tutorial, and well....

#rubyonrails #raspberrypi that took awhile... 13780 seconds! Most of the time was spent on the docs! pic.twitter.com/XugP2EyTUe
— Daryl Wiest (@DarylWiest) February 1, 2015

This is what I saw after My wife and I woke up at 3:30 to watch the Australian Open.

While watching, I was able to work my way though the first chapter, deploy locally (to my raspberry pi), to 'production' to a heroku account.

So far it's all been about infrastructure, so I'm looking forward to chapter 2, where you start the 'toy' app so I can begin to see how ruby and rails really work together!

Bike Maintence

Bike Maintenance is important, and something I don't do enough of!

I'll keep track of some useful links for myself here!


http://www.bicycling.com/maintenance/repair-maintenance/101-bike-maintenance-tips

My Personal Fitness Journey

  In 2007 when I graduated from college, I had ballooned up to 210lbs.  After getting a job offer out of college, I signed up for a starting month of September, and took my summer off to go sailing on the Kalmar Nyckel as a part of their sail training program.  

2007 at around 210 lbs

  I volunteered on the Nyckel, I really wanted to be a Tomman on the ship, which means that you get to climb aloft and work on the sails and the rigging.  To qualify to be able to climb on the ship, you had to be able to do three pull-ups, on a rope! 

  I could only do about half a pull-up, being a weak, freshly graduated computer engineer who spent entirely to much time sitting on my butt, eating takeout/freezer meals who had no upper body strength!    To reach my goal I had to train and train!  I did 'reverse pull-ups' where I would jump up and go though the pull-up up motion in reverse as slow and controlled as I could.  Combine literally 'hanging around' as much as I could along with the natural progression of hauling lines each day, my strength quickly grew until I could finally eek out my 3rd rope pull-up.  

  After I had reached that goal, I was allowed to go aloft!  Climbing up and down the rigging every day to loose and stow sails, I quickly progressed to 4,6, 8 and eventually 10 pull-ups!  At my best, I was down to 175lbs and was in the best shape that I'd been since Junior year in highschool.  

About 180lbs on the Kalmar Nyckel

Life went on, summer was over and my job started up.  I still went down to the ship almost every weekend for a few years.  I slowly began gaining weight as I ate out frequently and became more sedentary.  Even though I was going down to the ship just about every weekend, my trips down were full of stops at gas stations for meals and lots of other processed junk food.    

In August 2009 I went sailing on the East Indiaman Götheborg.  I was still fairly ship-shape, but looking back I can tell I was starting to put on some weight!

At some point in 2010/2011, While doing my (at the time) daily wii-fit workout and weigh in, it told me I was obese.   Not overweight, but obese!  I was in disbelief!  I didn't feel like I was THAT out of shape.  I realized that I needed to make a change.  I didn't want to 'lose weight', I wanted to get in shape and healthy.  

Christmas 2010, near my peak weight of 217.

I (and my now wife) were planning to get married in 2012.  I wanted to get into shape for our wedding/honeymoon.  When we would eat out, instead of eating my entree and finishing hers, we would get a single entree and split it.  She helped me get my portion sizes under control, and began cooking more foods from scratch instead of us relying on as much processed food. 

I managed to get down to about 185~195 for the wedding.  Honeymoon was great (Amazing SCUBA diving!) and then life continued on.  I was inspired to start bike commuting to work when I discovered Mr Money Mustache.  

My Daily Driver!

Around March of 2013, I started my bike commute to work.  It was 5.5 miles each way, and for about two weeks.... it sucked.  I was sore, it was still pretty cold out, and I was still working out the whole 'what to wear' process.  I started out wearing wool layers under the clothes I was wearing to work, but chain grease and the occasional time my pants cuff would catch in the chain.   I then switched to bringing my clothes in a bag on my back and changing at work.  I evolved into keeping clothes at work so I didn't need to carry them with me every day. 

Road work started on my route to work, and my trip went from 5.5 miles each way to 8 miles each way.  For the first two weeks.... it sucked again, it was hard.  But I adapted... I got stronger and faster, and continued to drop more weight.  Sometime around September 2013 we took part in a local Color Run, and I was down to the lowest weight I had ever been, at 147lbs.  

  Ever since then, I have been doing pretty well at keeping healthy, thanks to the constant support of my wonderful wife.  I always end up swinging up after the holidays.  I usually end up at about around 155 before Christmas, and after I'm around 165.  Having the holiday off from work means I don't have my daily commute for 3~4 weeks, and there is a LOT of food and sweets available.

Anyone can do it.  It takes a routine so you don't have to make decisions every day.  It takes a support structure, it takes hard work, and being cognizant of what you are eating.  You WILL backslide if you are not careful, but you have to know that it's not about your failures, it's about how you handle them!